Dearest Bella, Thanks so much for the lovely wedding gift. Marcus said he never heard of anyone giving a couple matching knives before, but he is sure that his will come in handy on the boat. He only hopes that none of the boys he is teaching will mock him for the mother-of-pearl handles. Personally, I think they are just perfect!
I’m sorry for the short notice, but we wanted to go ahead and tie the knot now, in case his father doesn’t get better after all (although he was looking pretty good under the moonlight, swimming around the floating dock we used for the ceremony). Barbara and her Liam flew out for the day. I can’t believe how happy she looks and how adorable little Babs is. I’m just sorry you couldn’t be here too.
But I am relieved to hear that you’ve found a clue as to the whereabouts of our missing three Riders. I know they’ve all been around for over a thousand years, but they’ve never disappeared like this before, and I can’t help being worried. How on earth do you suppose they all ended up in Montana? Do you think it has anything to do with all the wildfires you’ve been struggling with lately? Or that cryptic message the Queen of the Otherworld sent, calling us all to an urgent meeting?
Anyway, keep me posted, and I’ll see you soon.
Much love,
Your sister Baba,
Beka
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THE CRACKLE OF the two-way radio barely impinged on Liam McClellan’s consciousness as he scanned the bushes on either side of his squad car for any sign of a missing seven-year-old girl. He’d been down this same narrow country road yesterday at dusk, but like the other searchers, he’d had to give up when darkness fell. Like the rest—volunteers from the nearby community and every cop who could be spared, whether on duty or off—he’d come back at dawn to pick up where he left off. Even though there was little hope of success, after six long days.
His stomach clenched with a combination of too much coffee, too little sleep, and the acid taste of failure. Liam McClellan took his job as sheriff very seriously. Clearwater might be a tiny county in the middle of nowhere, its population scattered between a few small towns and a rural countryside made up mostly of struggling farmers, overgrown wilderness, and white-tailed deer, but it was his tiny county, and the people in it were his to protect. Lately, it didn’t seem like he’d been doing a very good job.
Mary Elizabeth Shields had disappeared out of her own backyard. Her mother had turned her back for a moment, drawn by the flutter of a bright-hued bird. When she turned around, the girl had vanished. Such a thing would be alarming enough on its own, but Mary Elizabeth was the third child to go missing in the last four months. To a lawman, that meant only one thing: a human predator was stalking the children of Clearwater County.
There had been no trace of any of the missing children. No tire marks, no unexplained fingerprints, no lurking strangers seen at any of the places from which the children had disappeared. No clues at all for a tired and frustrated sheriff to follow. And this time it was personal; Mary Elizabeth’s mother was one of his deputies. A single mother who adored her only child, Belinda Shields was beside herself with grief and terror, making Liam even more discouraged over his inability to make any headway in the case.
A rabbit bounded out of a tangle of sumac, and Liam slowed to avoid hitting it, his tires sending up a spray of dusty gravel. In his rearview mirror, he thought he caught a glimpse of an old woman walking by the side of the road with a basket of herbs over one gnarled, skinny arm. But when he looked again, no one was there.
The gauzy fog of an early summer morning gave the deserted back road a surreal quality, which only heightened as he came around the bend to his destination to find a totally unexpected sight.
When he was out here last night, the wide curve of road that ended in a patch of meadow overlooking the Clearwater River had been empty. This morning, there was a shiny silver Airstream trailer parked in the middle of the crabgrass and wildflowers of the meadow, along with the large silver Chevy truck that had no doubt hauled it there. Liam blinked in surprise as he eased his squad car to a halt a few yards away. He didn’t know anyone in the area who had such a fancy, expensive rig, and he couldn’t imagine a stranger being able to navigate his way into the back-of-beyond corner on a bumpy tertiary road in the dark.
But clearly, someone had.
Swinging his long legs out of the driver’s-side door, Liam thumbed the radio on and checked in with Nina in dispatch, hoping fervently she would tell him the girl had turned up, safe and sound.
No such luck.